I've taken a bit of time off from the blog since the holidays, spending a bit more time with the kiddos, working on some fun new business projects, and baking a few too many cookies. I'm looking forward to getting back into some blogging - I've missed you all! This year I want to make the blog a little more personal - more about my life, my interests outside of photography (what??? who knew?), and my family. You'll still be seeing plenty of my photography here, but I would like to make it a little more well-rounded. A little more me. And I'll be bringing some awesomely talented people in to the blog to share their words, like today! Huzzah for guest bloggers!

I met Jane-Marie through Health Foundations Family Health and Birth Center. She is the interior designer at Embellishments Design who made the birth center the warm, friendly, inviting space that it is. I asked Jane-Marie to write a little piece for my blog, and she came up with this fantastic advice for hanging art. Got some new portraits to hang? This piece is for you! And now, over to Jane-Marie!

Have you ever walked into the home of a stranger and immediately known what height that person must be by simply looking at how high they have hung his/her artwork? I tell you, it happens to me all the time. The husband, who has been assigned the task of hanging, is over 6 ft and has placed all the pictures at his eye level. The wife is only 5'3" (because you know he married someone much shorter than he - I know this because I am tall and ALL the tall men seemed to be taken and dating shorter women when I was in the dating pool!) and she can only see the picture if she pulls out the step ladder. If this sounds like your house, never fear. There can be a method to the madness and this method has nothing to do with your height. Here are my top 5 tips for hanging artwork, mirrors and pictures successfully:

1. As a general rule of thumb, the center of a picture should be around 58" from the floor. Of course, you may need to eyeball this to see how it looks in relation to other objects around it (such as fireplace mantels, window mullions, other architectural features), but 58" is my all-time favorite height. If you need to take other architectural elements into consideration, consider centering your picture on that element (i.e., the height of the mantel becomes your center point of your picture).

2. When hanging it above something else, make sure to hang your picture in relation to the piece of furniture it is going above. If hanging it over a dresser or a sofa, you may have to hang it lower than 58" so that it doesn't appear to "float" too high above the furniture. 4-12" above the furniture is appropriate.

3. Make paper templates of your pictures and tape them to the wall in order to see what the pieces will look like BEFORE you pound a nail. This is very important when hanging collages of pictures. And note, whenever you want to add another picture to your collage, you should make a new collage rather than building onto your current one, regardless of how many school photos you are determined to add to the mix down the road. Another hint: Lay out your pictures on the floor in the shape of a square. I first find four pictures that form the four corners of the square (they don't have to be the same size) and then I add additional pictures within those four corners, pushing out the corners if I need more space.

4. Measure the distance from the top of the picture to the center point of the picture and subtract from this the distance from the top of the picture to the hanger/wire, then add this number to 58". Now you'll know exactly where to pound the nail. This will ensure that you don't hang the piece higher than you expected.

5. When hanging two or more pictures side by side, I like to keep them approximately 2 - 4" apart unless they are going above a very wide piece of furniture. In that case, I suggest spreading them out so that the outer pieces of artwork start no more than 8 - 12" from the end of the piece of furniture.

Embellishments Design Studio is a full-service interior decoration studio, specializing in custom furniture, space planning and custom window treatments. The Studio has been serving the decorating needs of the Twin Cities metro for almost nine years. Owner, Jane-Marie Bloomberg, has a passion for achieving well-appointed interiors by focusing on what you already have, what you really need and what you truly want. Jane-Marie’s background in interior decoration started at an early age with the 4-story bookcase she renovated into the Barbie house to trump all Barbie houses. Currently, she has been working on the interiors of the Health Foundations Family Health and Birth Center in St Paul, MN, where Gwendolyn Waite's work is also featured.